Tracy boy recounts tale of torture, captivity

TRACY

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, June 13, 2009

Photo: Tracy Police Department, AP

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In this handout photo provided by the Tracy Police Department, the booking mug for Michael Schumacher, 34, is shown. Schumacher, and wife Kelly Layne Lau, 30, were arrested late Monday, charged with torture and other counts after a bruised, terrified 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, claiming he had just fled his captors, authorities said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Tracy Police Department) less

In this handout photo provided by the Tracy Police Department, the booking mug for Michael Schumacher, 34, is shown. Schumacher, and wife Kelly Layne Lau, 30, were arrested late Monday, charged with torture and ... more

Photo: Tracy Police Department, AP

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Kelly Layne Lau of Tracy, accused of kidnapping and other crimes in connection with the alleged abduction and imprisonment of a 17-year-old boy.

Kelly Layne Lau of Tracy, accused of kidnapping and other crimes in connection with the alleged abduction and imprisonment of a 17-year-old boy.

Photo: Tracy Police Department

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This undated photo provided by the Tracy Police Department shows Caren Ramirez. Police were seeking Ramirez on suspicion of participating in alleged abuse against her 17 year-old nephew who showed up Monday, Dec. 1, 2008 at a northern California gym with a chain locked to his ankle. (AP Photo/Tracy Police Department, ho) less

This undated photo provided by the Tracy Police Department shows Caren Ramirez. Police were seeking Ramirez on suspicion of participating in alleged abuse against her 17 year-old nephew who showed up Monday, ... more

Photo: Tracy Police Department, AP

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Anthony Waiters, sentenced to life in prison for the serial torture of a teenage boy in Tracy. (AP Photo/Tracy Press, Glenn Moore)

Anthony Waiters, sentenced to life in prison for the serial torture of a teenage boy in Tracy. (AP Photo/Tracy Press, Glenn Moore)

Photo: Glenn Moore, AP

Tracy boy recounts tale of torture, captivity

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Four suspects beat, tortured and chained to a fireplace a 16-year-old boy and spoke openly about how to kill him before he escaped by vaulting over the wall of a Tracy home and seeking help, the teenager told a grand jury in testimony made public Friday.

The boy said he spent more than a year in captivity during which he often went without food and was branded and repeatedly beaten with a baseball bat, according to transcripts released in San Joaquin County Superior Court.

"I can't tell you why," the boy replied when prosecutor Angela Hayes asked him the explanation for the alleged abuse. "Most of the reasons I think were just bogus reasons."

The boy told the grand jury that the defendants were angry at him for "bossing" the couple's children, speaking ill of Waiters' brother, forgetting to water the lawn, not cleaning the bathroom the way Lau liked it and not changing the diapers of the couple's youngest son properly.

The suspects even spoke of ways to kill him, the boy said.

"I remember they said they would try to, like, cut me up and everything and throw me in the delta," he said. Once, Schumacher asked his wife for a syringe "so he could, like, pump air into my veins and stuff like that," the teen testified.

The four defendants were indicted on charges of torture, aggravated mayhem, corporal injury to a child, child abuse, false imprisonment and criminal threats and could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. Three have pleaded not guilty, and the fourth, Schumacher, is to enter a plea next week.

The couple's two daughters, police officers, social workers and neighbors were among 35 witnesses who testified before the grand jury over eight days in March.

The 930-page transcript details a horrific imprisonment in which a bath for the boy meant having hot water thrown on him in the yard, meals were nonexistent and the abuse included being cut with a knife, punched with boxing gloves, forced to drink hot cinnamon Schnapps liqueur, choked with a belt and hit or branded with a bat that had been heated in the fireplace. Bleach was put into his injuries to add to the pain, he said.

The couple's 5-year-old daughter testified that she had seen her parents and Ramirez hit the boy with the bat "lots of times."

"Like, with a baseball bat, hard," the girl said.

The boy testified that the girl "was always nice to me" and would secretly give him a cup of water or climb on top of the kitchen counter to sneak him Halloween candy.

"I had to eventually start, like I guess, stealing food because I was like, really hungry," he said.

Ramirez told Schumacher and Lau that the boy was the source of all her problems, the boy testified.

"Caren would rub it in and everything, just so she would seem like she is the perfect parent, and I would seem like I'm the person that caused her to lose her house," he said. "That was the story that she told the Schumachers, that she lost her house because of me, because I was a thief and everything and she had to pay all these bills off."

Lau's father, Terry Brown, told the grand jury that he had asked Schumacher why the boy was in the home.

"He says, 'Well, he has an attitude problem, a behavior problem, so we have to sort of watch him.' I said, 'Oh, OK.' "

The boy had been imprisoned for nearly a year and a half when he escaped his captors Dec. 1, police said.

Investigators say he found a key to his shackles while being driven by the defendants. When they got home, the boy unlocked his shackles, used a trampoline to jump over an 8-foot wall in the backyard of the home and limped into the In-Shape Sport fitness club.

The boy had a padlock and 3-foot chain on his right ankle, was covered with old and new scars, and was caked in soot, witnesses said.

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